Beth Cook is a dating coach and wing-woman who throws private dating events for San Francisco’s most awesome and unattached. She also writes and draws about her own dating experiences and would love to hear from you. Want advice? Have advice? Send her an email.
I was out with a guy friend this week and he told me that he just got laid while he was in Las Vegas for a conference.
Me: Niiiiice. You were chatting ladies up at hotel bars?
Him: No. I met her through the OkCupid app.
Me: What?! Wait…is that also how you met that one-night-stand in NYC?
Him: Yep. (Smile)
Me: Wow, that shit really works!
OkCupid Mobile is not for dating, my friends. It’s for sex on demand (SOD).
Find someone in the neighborhood, inhale a few cocktails to get your mind off how sleazy this feels, and have awkward first-time sex with a stranger.
Shazam!
It’s not like this concept is new; every online dating site now has a mobile version—even the rather staid eHarmony—and there are heaps of stand-alone apps for meeting people, including of course the infamous gay male pick-up app, Grindr.
What’s interesting, however, is that we are now spending more time looking to cure loneliness via location-based apps than actual websites.
Are we getting more impatient or just sluttier?
Eh, probably both.
I guess this immediate gratification / timesaving strategy makes sense. I would much rather decide between 5 pop-up faces than sift through 350 supposed online matches. Plus I would get to avoid all of that pre-date mindless chatter! Though would having sex with one of the faces be better than my reliable vibrator?
The magic of limited options is powerful. It’s why The Bachelor always finds someone to marry in six weeks and why I always get a date on an airplane; I simply find the cutest guy without a ring and chat him up. Easy peasy.
And we might as well try something besides online dating — it was just proven that site algorithms can’t actually predict who you are going to fancy. Duh.
So grab that smart phone of yours and start making some dumb decisions! I’m sure at the very least you will be reminded how weird people are and how difficult it is to find someone you can stand listening to AND want to sleep with.
Photo by Jean Koulev
